Monkeys loose aboot this hoose

Auld Reekie zookeepers are even now trying to tempt the Barbary macaques, recently arrived from a zoo in Germany, down from the trees with bananas, nuts and seeds.

Edinburgh zoo committed the schoolboy error of trying to move primates between enclosures when the macaques discovered a “chink in the armour” of their new pen, according to BBC Scotland.

Head zookeeper Lorna Hughes said: “We moved our 12 barbary macaques to a new enclosure within the zoo and, being inquisitive animals, they decided to explore their enclosure and found a certain little weakness where they could climb up a certain part of the wall and make their way under the electric fence at the top.”

The escaped macaques are more commonly known as “Barbary Apes”, famous for infesting the rock of Gibraltar. Additional pub quiz trivia: despite their common name, they are not, in fact apes, and they are the only extant European non-human primate.

Rumours that a smouldering American macaque stole a Triumph TR6 Trophy and attempted to vault the barbed wire before being brutally slain by keepers remain unconfirmed.